Lara Logan, the distinguished CBS News correspondent, was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo on Feb. 11, the day that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced from power, the network news division said in a statement Tuesday.Also at Hot Air, "Horrendous: CBS reporter brutally sexually assaulted during Cairo protests."
After the mob surrounded her, Ms. Logan “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers,” the network said.
Ms. Logan and a camera crew, along with an unknown number of security staff members, were covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, where untold thousands of people had gathered. CBS said the group that enveloped Ms. Logan, “a dangerous element” within the larger crowd, numbered more than two hundred people “whipped into a frenzy.” She was separated from the crew and then attacked.
After being rescued, “she reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering,” the network said.
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UPDATE: This is beneath contempt, from Debbie Schlussel:
Hey, sounds like the threats I get from American Muslims on a regular basis. Now you know what it’s like, Lara.Look, it's a riveting story, but in cases like this, more information is usually forthcoming. I don't read Debbie Schlussel, in any case. She's widely reviled around the conservasphere, for issues I'm only vaguely familiar with. But even in the absence of more information on exactly what took place, it's just vile to attack Lara Logan for deserving it since she chose to cover the protests for CBS. No doubt Islam has its savages, and I'm hardly the biggest bleeding heart for Muslim rabble, but to take this further as a defense of Mubarak's police state is also pretty twisted.There will be no further comment from CBS News and Correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.I just love it when the people of the profession of “the public’s right to know” suddenly want “privacy.” Tell it to your next interview subject, Lara. Of course CBS has no further comment. Wouldn’t wanna impugn the “peacefullness” of “Religion of Peace” animals, would we? Now, if they were Christians or Jews, well, then there would be comments galore.
So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that’s a hope that’s generally unanswered.
This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.
Now that’s all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”
Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].
I am/was a State Dept FSO trained as an Arabist and lived in four Arab countries. I’ve visited Egypt several dozen times both as a USG diplomat and afterwards as a Political Risk Analyst for Amoco, the largest foreign corporation in Egypt. What happened to Lara is absolutely inexcusable, but the photo shows her heading into the crowd without a shawl or scarf, the bare minimum a woman must wear in order not to be considered a prostitute when she walks in the streets of Cairo. TV snaps of Christiane Amanpour show her wearing a shawl/scarf when she was in a public street situation. Americans are notoriously [indeed all Brit Empire Anglos seem to be] very disrespectful or ignorant of foreign customs, just as a matter of course. Strange as it may seem to us Americans, Lara may have been perceived by the animals who attacked her as disrespecting Egyptian customs, flaunting a feminist agenda, or even taunting them by wearing inappropriate [to their eyes] apparel in a public situation. That’s the way the minds of these medieval males work.
ReplyDeleteNo excuses, but Lara did not do the very minimum required to show that “when in Cairo, do as the Cairenes do.”
Good explanation as to learning the customs and mores of countries one visits, reports, et al. Having spent some time representing the people of the US in Asia I know, learned, there are things one must learn as a minimum just to be respectful of the culture one is in doing their job.
ReplyDeleteOne would think that CBS at a minimum would appraise their employees as to how one should comport themselves in the areas of the world they report. One must ask what CBS was thinking in allowing her to report in this manner when she so clearly demonstrates that she represents an American company. And one wonders why Americans have such a bad reputation in so many countries around the world.
Interesting that the bowing and scraping to 'local custom' is all a one way street, no? the muslims in the USA do not honor, respect or abide by our laws, customs, or traditions.
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, one considers honor killing one's wife or daughter, throwing acid in the faces of women, or flying airplanes into buildings full of civilians to be new American customs, in which case I stand corrected.